The present invention is directed toward a renewable energy electric power generating system and, more particularly, toward an integrated renewable energy system comprised of high temperature superconducting wind turbines and regenerative or interactive solid oxide fuel cells/electrolyzers with superconducting magnetic energy storage based on a managed demand cycle.
The world is facing a major energy and clean air challenge. Renewable energy systems using wind, sun, and water and utilizing advanced energy generating technology offer some potential solutions. Unfortunately, the current state of the art of conventional wind turbine generators, energy storage systems, as well as fuel cell/electrolyzer technologies have individually not been fully developed from a standpoint of efficiency and cost effectiveness to meet the challenge.
Current wind turbines for utility use are huge machines that use conventional generator designs that include troublesome gear systems and lack of a commercially viable nighttime off-peak energy storage system. Low temperature superconducting energy storage systems use two-stage liquid helium cryorefrigeration to cool their metallic niobium-titanium or niobium-tin coils and are not cost effective. Also, current first generation high temperature superconducting coil wound energy storage units do not function efficiently at liquid nitrogen temperature. Solid oxide fuel cell systems that generate electricity for utility use are generally designed to use natural gas or methane as the base fuel for hydrogen, thus contributing to air quality degradation. Integrated electrolysis systems have not been fully developed to use the high temperature steam, a byproduct of fuel cell operations, in combination with low priced off-peak produced renewable energy for producing hydrogen in a cost effective manner. The challenge is to effectively integrate a combination of advanced renewable energy systems where the strength of each individual system is utilized to offset the shortcomings of other components of the overall system thus creating a more efficient synergistic result.